


Desire's Realm

by fajrdrako



Category: The Sandman (Comics), Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-08 00:28:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fajrdrako/pseuds/fajrdrako
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was not the first time Captain Jack Harkness had died.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desire's Realm

It was not the first time Captain Jack Harkness had been shot in the head. It was not the first time he had been shot by an employee, bringing new meaning to the word 'disgruntled'. 

It was certainly not the first time he had died.

There was nothing beyond death. He knew that from each experience. He might want St. Peter to greet him like a crusty old uncle, or to see a bright light, or to be met by long-lost relatives and the dog he had loved in childhood. Even a snarling demon might have entertainment value. 

He knew better than to expect any of that.

It was different this time. Jack was not alone in the darkness. This place was clearly not heaven or hell or the Void or anywhere he had ever imagined; it was a garden filled with white and purple flowers, and there were statues in grey marble, each one a nude of exquisite and sensuous detail, male and female alike.

As might be expected in a mystical garden, there was a fountain, with a pool around it, and a low marble wall around the pool. The person sitting on the wall was more lovely than the exquisite statues. The statues were lifelike, but this was life itself, facing Jack with the kind of mischievous smile he saw on Ianto's face whenever Ianto was thinking about sex - which was often the case when Ianto looked at Jack, so he knew that expression well. This person was gorgeous.

Practised though he was in the matter, Jack could not tell if this was a man or a woman; nor could he guess the person's age. He would have thought it an androgyne from the planet Sapara, except that they tended to be green-skinned, and he had never seen a Saparan so beautiful. Stranger still, this person wore a suit of formal evening wear from the 51st century - something he had not seen for longer than he could compute. It had satin trim, and the ivory sheen of a snow-orchid showed in the breast pocket - the flower that symbolized love. When Jack had left home, this was the height of fashion.

He was himself wearing what he had been wearing when Owen shot him: vintage military, without the greatcoat. He regretted the lack of greatcoat, since it would have added a little style to the moment. Making do, he held out his hand with a smile. "Captain Jack Harkness."

The hand which touched his was gentle; for one bewildering moment he thought he had never felt a touch so sensuous. "You don't recognize me." The voice held neither reproach nor surprise. "I know you well. Please sit, Jack." The voice, like the touch, was richly erotic.

He sat on the low wall, leaning sideways a little to contemplate his companion. "Have we met? Could I forget anyone so striking? Two years of memories were taken from me. Did I know you then?"

Amusement deepened the mellow voice. "You have always known me. Those memories - I know how intensely you have wanted them back. No, don't look at me like that, do I look as if I were teasing?"

"You are teasing personified."

The laughter that greeted this was delightfully spontaneous. "Perfect! You so belong here!"

"Where am I?"

"In my realm." The voice was mellow, arousing with timbre alone.

"Who are you?"

"I have many names. Something else you and I have in common."

"Death?" he suggested. He’d met many people who claimed various kinds of godhood. Death would at least be appropriate under the circumstances, though he might have expected old bones and a sickle. 

"No. Death is my sister."

He quoted Shelley’s lines: "How wonderful is Death, Death, and his brother Sleep."

"So passing wonderful?" The tone was deeply ironic. "Too flattering, and inaccurate. Dream is our brother, and has nothing to do with this. He abandoned you long ago. Death and I made a wager - we both wanted you, you see. That Dalek exterminated you, which put you on the fast track to Death's domain. I decided to fight her for you. I won."

Death's sibling's eyes were a vivid and deep colour which Jack was unable to name. Black, perhaps. The black of a black hole. The grey of the sea at night. They seemed almost familiar, which was impossible, until he realized with a shock that these made him think of the Doctor's timeless eyes.

"You brought me back to life?"

"I didn't need to. It was done for me. It was done by someone who loved you, whose desire was more vivid than time. Her passionate will was more powerful than Destiny. The ripples from what was done in that moment are still reverberating through the timestream of many dimensions. You should be gratified, to be at the centre of all that fuss and bother. All for love."

"I might be, if I understood what that meant. Am I dead?"

"Do you want to be?"

He thought the answer was on the tip of his tongue, but he stopped before speaking. He remembered saying to Gwen, after the encounter with the Cyberwoman, "Just for a second there, I felt so alive."

So he said truthfully: "No. No, I want to live."

"Then you will. The desire is all. Of all my creations, you are my masterpiece."

"You created me?" Jack laughed out loud, incredulously. It was rude, here in his host's own garden. But there was no point in being coy. "I don't buy that."

"Oh, yes, Jack the self-made man. You put yourself together with bits and pieces of stolen experience. You made yourself, but I wove the design. Desire plays a role in the creation of every life, and in its continuation."

"Desire," he repeated. The word put a chill down his back and brought a stab of heat to his groin. He - she - this person - had the heady quality of a living aphrodisiac, dangerous and enticing.

"And what desires you have - to save the world, to find your Doctor. To love, and love, and love some more. You burn with a bright flame." The dark eyes themselves seemed to glow with inner light. Desire called him by a name he had not heard for many years of his lifetime, and reached out to touch his cheek.

He tried to pull Desire into his embrace, but Desire slipped away, standing on the pathway beyond arm's reach. "My own wish to talk to you has been fulfilled. You must go back now, if you hope to stay among mortals."

"Will I see you again?"

The smile was mysterious and deep and for him alone. "I will always be with you. I always have been. Haven't you noticed? Now, scoot."

He did not move. The garden and its beauty disappeared. He was lying on the hard floor, his body jerking convulsively from pain in his head and his body where the bullets had penetrated. The world was in disorder: alarms, lights flaring, the roaring of Weevils, the cracking of the world as the Rift swung open. Time was crumbling; he could feel it shift. He grabbed at something - Gwen's leg, then her hand. 

"What have you done?" he asked, but he knew. They had opened the Rift, they had loosed chaos on the world, moved by the force of their desires. His beautiful mad team.

Well: he could fight desire with desire, and he would, until there was nothing left to fight with.


End file.
